Facebook Fan Pages are gaining popularity due to their high adoption rates among Facebook’s 300+ million users. Currently more than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day. However, the basic fan page layout is quite cookie cutter, so adding some simple modifications can really make a Fan Page standout and land those valuable fans. Not only will this look great, but it is easy and cost effective, unlike a custom built and branded Facebook Application.

The average Facebook Page would look like the following:

The main features are the different tabs (called ‘boxes’) that make up the overall look of the page. The standard items on each Facebook Page are “Wall” and “Info” while popular applications (show up in separate tabs) and “Photos,” “Discussions,” “Videos,” and “Notes.”

What all of these items are lacking – is the ability to modify a page so that the visual appearance could match that of your website, promotional material or landing page. One simple application can add this functionality to your pages and pull in Facebook statistics as well.

The application Static FBML will allow you to create a new tab on your Facebook Page that can be completely customized to mimic your web presence by displaying HTML and FBML so that you can render a truly customized section for your fans. Here is a step-by-step look at how you can implement this tactic.

First, you must have an active Facebook Page that you have admin access to. Then, head over to the Static FMBL Page and choose the “Add To My Page” link:

Once clicked, you will have the ability to choose a page (or pages) that you can add this application to. The application will then be added to the chosen Page(s) and will be labeled “FBML.”

Next, you will want to click “edit your page” then choose to edit the “FBML – FBML” application.

This is where the magic happens and the customization occurs. You can use simple HTML to fill this page and really have it stand out from your competition. An important note is that javascript is not supported, so just stick with plain old HTML for best results.

There is also a good deal of helpful conversations which can enhance your troubleshooting within the “Discussions”  box of the FBML Page if you get stuck.  Sunkist has a great example of a customized FBML Page for their “Sunkist Team” if you are looking for a few creative ideas.

Now, you should have your customized look in the newly named box … but you are not done yet! If your newly created page is really important for your brand (timely promotion, special savings or just an all around improvement from your wall) you can set this new box as your default location that users will arrive on when they visit your site.

If you choose to do this, simply edit your “Wall Settings” and select your new box in the “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else:” drop down tab.

That’s it! With these simple steps, hopefully you can truly step up the presence of your Facebook Page and differentiate yourself from the pack.  This method should be not only be a cheap way to achieve a customized look, but should also be extremely easy!

Have a Facebook page or creating a new one? Do yourself a favor and be proactive in setting your page up, so users can find you when they are looking. Too often, companies and brands don’t take the proper steps to be found and have to make adjustments in order to show in Facebook search. Whether you are setting up your first page, or tweaking an old one,  the following tips can help you rise to the top of the search results.

Use your brand for your Facebook page name

When naming your Facebook page, you only have one shot at giving it a “name.”  This is what shows up as the title of the page and is created when first setting a page up. This is currently the largest indicator for Facebook search and is make or break for your page being found.

While it might seem simple that you would choose your brand name, it is not always cut and dry.  For example, let’s say we are making a fan page for Search Engine Land. Many times people could create the page with the name titled “SearchEngineLand.com” which would severely handicap your chances of being shown in Facebook search. Similarly, you should keep it simple and not get fancy with the name. Say that the NFL wanted to create a fan page. Well, instead of registering the “National Football League” keyword research should be done to see if “NFL” garners more interest. Don’t try to get cutesy with the naming of pages (like “Comcast Cares”) and make sure you use spaces and full words. While something like SouthwestAir would work for Twitter, you would rather have “Southwest Airlines” for being found in Facebook search in order for maximum visibility.

Build your following

If the Facebook page name is top criteria for being found in Facebook search, the fan count is second place. At SMX East in the Facebook Marketing Panel, Marty Weintraub really stressed this fact and couldn’t emphasize enough how important fan numbers (or group or application numbers) were for being found in the Facebook search results pages. If you have the same name as other pages (which is a common occurrence), the page with more followers should show up first.

Leverage Facebook Ads to help build a following as advertising your pages can help boost fans of your page. You can also leverage employee profiles or groups that you are a part of to really help boost your group numbers.

Create a branded Facebook username

While this may not play a major role in being found within the internal Facebook search, the URL structure can play an important role in getting ranked in the major search engine results pages.  Being found within these pages can clearly help to boost your fan following from those who may be searching outside of Facebook. While we have not seen a direct correlation between usernames and internal Facebook rankings, having a keyword rich username could an indicator in the future and would be considered best practice.

Create fresh content regularly

Wall posts, events and “posts by everyone” can now be displayed in Facebook Search. By creating regularly updated content, you will significantly increase your chances for being shown.  Simple wall posts with branded keywords or branded events will give you extra visibility in the new real time Facebook Search.

Leverage domain equity to boost Facebook pages in SERPs

Again, this is a bit of a secondary tactic, but providing a link from your homepage to your Facebook page should help to get your Facebook page ranking for branded terms.  Think of it as proactive reputation management for your brand. Getting people to your page via Google, Yahoo! or Bing can really boost up those fans to your page thereby trickling down to those Facebook Search ranking factors.

Advertise on branded “interests”

While this won’t boost you into the natural Facebook search results, this will allow you to show up on selected terms. While Facebook ads still run off of “interests” rather than keywords, bidding solely on extremely targeted interests, you can boost your possibility of being found. In addition, Facebook does run select Microsoft-network ads, so advertising in adCenter could help you sneak in and steal some of that Facebook search traffic (if you know what you are doing).

Fill in all information about your brand/company

Whether it be the information boxes, mission statements, website or descriptions these could be indicators down the road. While the information isn’t currently helping your pages show in Facebook results pages, it can also help those pages in external Search Engines as most page content is indexed. The more relevant the content, the better. While these sections might not play a role in internal Facebook ranking, there is evidence that it can help the ranking of groups.  This could be applied to pages in the future (and should IMO).

Spend a little time optimizing your site for bing

If you need one reason to pay attention to Bing, it could be for the sole fact that it displays the web results in Facebook Pages. You will always find those web results at the bottom of the Facebook Search, so spend a little time working your site for Bing and you could see a big payoff from the Facebook search platform.

These tips should help your visibility in Facebook search and help to take your fan page to new heights!

For social news and bookmarking services, 2009 has really been the tale of the customized URL shortener. Each of the three largest social sites (Digg.com, Reddit.com and StumbleUpon.com) have implemented a URL shortening service that helps users of the site participate. Here is a breakdown of the three tools.

DiggURL

Digg’s version of a URL shortener not only shortens the link, but also frames the content with a ‘DiggBar’ that allows users to perform various actions. The DiggURL has seen a variety of changes in its short career. At first, everyone was shown the DiggBar when using a DiggURL,and a big hullabaloo arose, so the execution was changed. Digg then programmed the DiggBar to only be seen by those users that are currently logged into Digg and opt to view the service.  Since then, Digg has reverted back to the original execution and is showing it to all users, logged in or not.

How to use DiggURL

If the story has already been submitted to Digg, simply click the share button underneath the article link and the shortened address will appear. If you are looking for an easier way to do this (without submitting to Digg), simply add a “digg.com/” in front of any URL and the link will automatically be shortened. This method will allow you do shorten the URL from any webpage.

What are the benefits?

Digg users who are logged in (and chose to view the DiggBar) can vote on stories directly from the bar. In addition, users can see related stories, view comments (most dugg comment, most recent comment and most controversial comment) or randomly browse in a StumbleUpon-esque format. Another feature of the DiggBar is to share via email, Twitter or Facebook – right from the bar. At the moment, the only metric for tracking is a generic “views” statistic that is shown to anyone who sees the DiggBar.

Su.pr by StumbleUpon

Recently out of beta, su.pr is the URL shortener for StumbleUpon and has a variety of features. This shortener will frame the page and display a toolbar at the top of the page for all users.

How to use it

Go to su.pr and either sign up for an account (recommended if you are looking for advanced tracking) or simply enter in an address that you would like shortened. Then, take that URL and share away!

What are the benefits of Su.pr?

Each user is sent the framed article, and they can easily vote on content without having to install and use the traditional StumbleUpon browser-based toolbar. In addition to voting, you can share with your friends, review the page, post to Facebook or Twitter – or simply ‘stumble’ around other sites that have been submitted to StumbleUpon.

Most notably, Su.pr’s tracking is the best in show out of all current Social News/Bookmarking sites if you sign up for an account. You can track traffic, clicks, referrers, Stumbles, and retweets all in a very appealing visual format. Another new feature allows you to use your own URL ,but still utilize the su.pr interface on Wordpress blogs that run on PHP 5.  A simple plugin will do the trick and you won’t be tied to the su.pr domain for your links.

Reddit

Many people do not know that you can shorten Reddit URLs, as their launch was soft and gained nowhere near the attention that Digg enjoyed. This shortener will frame the content and any user that clicks the link will be served a small Reddit bar in the top of the screen.

How to use Reddit as a URL shortener

Much like the DiggURL, simply toss a “reddit.com/” in front of your URL and you will have a Reddit shortened link created.

What are the benefits?

The Reddit bar allows visitors to vote on the article, view a sample of the comments from any given story or visit a random story on Reddit.  The toolbar is very minimal, but does give users all they need to quickly vote on the story and be on their way.

Choosing the best shortener

To find out what shortener (if any) would work for you, see what sites you have had success on by checking your analytics and searching around on the various sites. These social URLs are not for everyone, but if used properly, you can help to give your content a significant boost in traffic.

Editor’s Note: See also our URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use? which looks at URL shorteners and what to consider independently of social media issues, such as URL longevity and potential issues with framing.

Having outstanding content is crucial in a good social media campaign, but  many times the overall framework around the campaign can make or break your initiatives. Not only do you want to make sure that your campaign is overwhelmingly successful, but that you can track all of the metrics of this success.

Content related items

• Thoroughly check your hosting - Make sure that your hosting can withstand a flurry of traffic – that can many times cripple a server. Contact your hosting provider and see if they could handle 25,000 visits in a 5 minute span.  Many people think they are going to do alright, but end up crashing during primetime, wasting all their work.
• Doublecheck your content – Many times, even with excellent bandwidth and a reliable host, webmasters can shoot themselves in the foot in their execution of the content. Say you have 100 images to accompany a top 100 list and they all measure about 40kb an image. Your host’s processor might have the allotted amount of bandwidth for the data transfer, but the processor might get crushed trying to serve the 100 images to 10,000 visitors a minute and crash the site. Use things like Amazon S3 or Flickr for image hosting and YouTube or Vimeo for video hosting, so you won’t strain your own hosting resources.
• Think about social voting buttons & badges - One thing that can bring voting to a halt is the lack of voting buttons on a page. If using buttons and badges, make sure that each button is going to the specific place and pre-load as much as possible so that users won’t have to think as much.
• Look for events to avoid - Even the most awesome content in the world would have gotten lost during Michael Jackson’s funeral, when all of the social networks were crippled by the bandwidth. Many events are impossible to avoid, but there are so many others (elections/ceremonies/holidays …etc) which can be avoided.
• Schedule launch for primetime – Make sure that you are giving your content its due and launch when you think you will have the most success; don’t just launch when it is done. If launching on Twitter, select the time of day and week where you think you will have as much pickup as possible. Same with the social news/bookmarking sites, make sure to set yourself up to utilize your networks to the maximum.
• Analytics check - This is a no-brainer, make sure that you are tracking as much as possible during a campaign.  Having instant access to traffic stats is ideal, as you will be able to find out what is working well and try to exploit similar outlets.
• Make sure additional support is ready - If looking to bolster your campaigns with other forms of marketing such as PPC campaigns, press releases, blogger outreach lists  or contextual ads, make sure that they are all set and ready to launch.  Many times these methods have an approval process or a good deal of footwork that have to be done before they can be launched. Make sure everything is buttoned down before launching.

Baseline Reporting

• URL link check - View the number of inbound links to that specific page. Why? You should be tracking as many metrics as possible so that you can show detailed results to clients. Tracking the number of inbound links pre-launch will enable you to give your client direct results from the work that you have done.
• Domain link check - This is mainly for smaller websites, but is still a great practice to track for all clients. One of the byproducts of promoting a specific page is that the main domain will garner links as well as the specific page in question. For many sites, every link counts and you want to make sure that you track everything!
• Track overall pickups - Before launching, make sure that you have the proper resources to track all mentions of the campaign so that you will be able to justify the chatter about your campaign. SocialMention, WhosTalkin & Raven SEO Tools all have built in monitoring (as well as many others out there) that will allow you to really find (and save) what people are saying about you.
• URL ranking report - One of the main results that you will see from a successful social news site is a quick lift in the SERPs. Tools like SEMrush allow you to find out what a specific page is already ranking for (if ranking for anything at all). Then, 30 days after your campaign has ended, you will be able to show hard evidence of increases that your Social Media Campaign has made on your SEO efforts.
• Domain ranking report - Just like the ‘domain link check’ successful promotion of a specific article will most likely help your overall domain authority, so do some basic groundwork on how the entire site is performing in the SERPs before launching your campaigns.

With this checklist, you should be properly equipped to not only run a successful campaign, but also be able to show cold hard facts on the success of any campaign as well!

Looking to find out how popular your blog post was on Twitter? Want to know what tweets people really enjoy? Well, these Twitter-based applications can help you see the most popular trends on Twitter by aggregating tweets.

1. Tweetmeme

By far the most popular tweet aggregator, Tweetmeme lists the most popular links on Twitter. Much like Digg, the stories can then be viewed across 40+ different categories and also segmented by Images, News or Video. The top URLs for the day can be easily located in the popular sections. A user history can be found if you select a username, so you can see how many tweets each of the last ten links in a given user’s Twitter stream has received.

Tweetmeme offers an attractive button for your website that can help to gather retweets and let visitors know which stories are the most popular. A “chicklet” is also offered to showcase the entire number of tweets for a domain rather than a story so visitors can see the best historical tweets. If you want to bring some of the top links to your site, then the Tweetmeme widget can quickly allow you to customize and easily integrate elsewhere.

How it works

Tweetmeme scans Twitter and logs links from all of the Twitter accounts. Then it decodes shortened links so it can attribute a real number to the destination article. The following URL shorteners are supported:

• bit.ly
• awe.sm
• cli.gs
• digg.com
• is.gd
• TinyURL.com
• tr.im
• su.pr
• ow.ly
• lopurls.us
• twurl.nl

Webmasters should simply place the Tweetmeme button on their site, then sit back and watch the tweets roll in!

2. Twitturly

The Twitturly service acts just like Tweetmeme, but the overall interface is scaled back. There are no categories or widgets, but a few unique features make Twitturly a very helpful tool. The “profiles” tab allows users to type in their name and see the stats on all of their tweets (not just 10). Another helpful search that can be performed is a “My Top 100″ search that will fetch the top 100 links tweeted by your followers so you can get an consensus on the most popular links from the people you follow.

How it works

The profile and top 100 searches simply leverage the Twitter API and store the data. The number of tweets on a link is said to count all shortened links:

“We always count the “votes” correctly because our spiders actually visit every single site before it gets displayed here.”

3. Twittl

Twittl is an interesting platform that allows users to submit their favorite tweets rather than simply aggregating links from Twitter. This site is extremely original in the fact that it allows users to not only submit and vote on the best actual tweets, but also puts them in context with the description and to comment on the specific tweets.

How it works

Users must submit the specific tweet to Twittl and assign it a title and a description. Then users can vote for that tweet or they could bury that tweet (a negative vote). The tweets that have the most votes are promoted to the popular page, while those that lack the proper voting support stay in the “upcoming stories” section.

Twittl could become popular in the near future for celebrity information as the tweets themselves are newsworthy. So someone could summit Oprah’s first ever tweet then another user could submit Shaq’s response and the conversation could begin in the comments.

These different applications are really helping to make Twitter easier to navigate from a news standpoint, as the top stories and tweets are being aggregated into an easy-to-consume format. With more and more beneficial sites popping up like these, just look for Twitter to keep growing in popularity as users keep receiving more and more relevant information.

You could be the next “Will It Blend” but if nobody knows about you, then it doesn’t matter how creative and awesomely original you are. One of the most important factors in social media is the promotion of your content, and this often leads to annoyance. There are many annoying social media habits, but perhaps the most annoying come from the promotion of social media. Avoid the following social promotion pitfalls to become a less annoying (and more effective) user:

The Impersonal Users. If asking for a favor, make it personal. Social media is supposed to be all about relationships, yet so many people are lazy and make things impersonal. Great, I’m glad you found my IM name in my social profile, but my full name isn’t ‘Can you Digg this for me,’ so find some manners and use them. This is the same for all social mediums. Instead of direct messaging “friends” and telling them to share something in 140 characters, take the time to chat with them on IM, talk about the story in mind, and inquire if they would be interested in passing information along to their friends. The more time and genuine effort that you out into something, the better it will come out – I guarantee it.

The Crazed Cross Promoters. Did you just send your Digg account page via StumbleUpon? Did you send me a message on Mixx that included a link to Propeller?  These types of actions can really annoy users and garner you more negative votes than positive votes. People join StumbleUpon because they want to find quality new stories, not see your Twitter name. By all means, use social badges on your site to spread love, but if you are trying to use one social medium to force users into a social media marathon, you are trying too hard.

The One Way Streeters. These  people are the most obvious annoyances on social networks, as you simply have to look at the number of times that they have asked you for a vote in comparison to the number of times you have sent something to them.  If this is a one way street, you have found yourself a “one way streeter.” Guess what? If you IM multiple Reddit stories to friends who aren’t asking for anything from you, there is a good chance that they are avoiding them all together or downvoting you.  Try to keep an even ratio of stories with your friends, as it is the courteous thing to do.  Nobody likes that guy who always needs something in real life – and they don’t on social networks either.

The Always An Emergency Users. These users embody the little boy from “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” to the fullest. If every tweet is followed with PLS RETWEET and every message sent is of high importance, it all loses meaning. If I wrote this entire post in bold, no words would stand out. The same is true with social media; if you say that something is important, it better well be or when there is really a wolf nobody will be listening.

The Convenient Users. Even worse than the one way streeters, these users only show up when they need something, but you couldn’t even find them if you needed something. These users pop on to Instant Messenger to drop you a link and then vanish in under a nanosecond. You may catch them DMing you on Twitter and then not using the service or even checking messages for weeks. If you have something that you want to share that badly, at least stick around and hear what your “friends” have to say about it, let alone being visible or active when they have something for you.

The Total Spammers. These users may be the most annoying for the sole reason that they know how annoying they are, and yet they don’t care…at all. You can find them IM-ing you tens of links to stories to vote on, or showing up in your inbox after they figured out your email name and added you to their promotion list or worse yet – hacking your account to share their content. Social media users report spam, and these users are just helping to dig themselves into their own graves.

At the end of the day, social media is truly about being social – so try to translate your manners online and you will stay off this list (and boost your success!)

Power to the people!  Sites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller and Mixx have become popular social news sites due to the community driven aspect that fuels them.  Traditionally these news sites offer “digital democracy” that entices users because they themselves are able to determine what is (and isn’t) news.  However, a different form of social news not only exists, but flourishes: “editorial social news.”

Editorially driven social news allows users to submit articles for consideration, but content is chosen by editors who handpick it from a wide selection of submissions.  While this may not sound “social,” users generally can comment and rate the content, as well as submit links.  These sites are continually popular and can send large amounts of traffic and massive amounts of visibility to a story.  Some of the most prominent editorial social news sites are Fark, Slashdot, I-Am-Bored and Ebaumsworld.  Many users prefer these sites because they contain less spam and the content found on the homepage is fairly stable and doesn’t vary a great deal.

The largest site in particular, Fark, actually bucks the trend of making it more challenging for power users and is actually grateful for them.  In a recent interview, founder Drew Curtis stated:

“Almost all of the stuff that makes the main page is from those 20 guys—not exclusively, and it’s not like we’ve got a quota or anything like that, but that’s how it works out. Because those guys are writing it properly.”

These sites should not be overlooked due to the ease of submission and the traffic that can be obtained.  One title and description can be used across all sites, and no time-consuming promotion or vote getting is needed, as administrators eventually select what is popular.

Best practices for submitting to editorial social news sites

Create compelling titles. An enticing and creative title is the most important factor when submitting your links to these sites.  Administrators are looking for a submission that just needs approval, with little or no editing or tweaking needed.  Getting noticed is half the battle on these sites and a great title can help you stand out above the rest of the crowd.  There are some great resources out there for constructing superb titles to get you noticed.

Don’t look spammy. When submitting to a social editorial news site, standard Internet courtesies apply.  It’s a good idea to submit suggestions from a variety of sites and only submit on-target content.  Having an account that is fully self-promotional won’t help editors and will more likely annoy them and they will avoid your content down the road.  Also, if your content doesn’t match the genre of the site, avoid submitting it altogether and look for a more niche social news site.

Submit attractive, quality content. Not only should your content be relevant, it should be quality content and, more importantly, it should give a good first impression.  Sites that are plastered in ads or have content broken up across 10 pages don’t leave a good taste in a reader’s mouth.  If you work hard to make a killer title and the editor can’t stomach the appearance of your site, all will be for naught.

Successfully submitting to these these editorially driven social sites may send you massive traffic, loads of links, and a good deal of visibility.  Take the extra time to construct a creative title and cross your fingers and hope that your link is promoted!

While having great content and an appropriate message are crucial for success on social media news sites, having a quality user help with promotion is essential to build momentum. Contacting and conversing with top users who share similar interests as you can be beneficial in helping to spark your content and get it noticed.

This is meant to be a resource to find all of those top social users that people continually speak about so you can find related power users on the social site of your choice.

Social Media News

Digg. Even though Digg eliminated its list of the top Diggers years ago, they’re still listed in a few different locations:

Socialblade.com. Socialblade aggregates data on all stories that become popular and on the users that submit them. This wealth of information not only shows you statistics on Digg users, but also on the statistics behind what it takes to reach Digg’s home page. Banned Diggers are included on many of the lists, but are highlighted in red (with strikethrough) so you can see who isn’t an active user anymore.

Di66.net. This minimalistic site showcases the top Digg users, but has options that allow you to display the most successful submitters over a specific period of time. It allows for viewing of top Diggers by the following time periods: 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 1 year, all-time. Simply find “Top Diggers” in the left column and select the time period that you desire.

Reddit. Top users and biggest karma gainers on Reddit were traditionally shown under the stats page on Reddit. However, Reddit has now removed the stats for “performance reasons” (although the now empty stats page still exists here). Expect the page to be back up in the future (this is something that frequently has been broken in the past). Currently, no locations other than Reddit itself provide detailed top user stats.

StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon’s Top Stumblers are the most active and helpful members in the community. Each of these members has a large following and a great ability to make stories popular. If you click on any of the category tags in the side cloud, you can spot active users that are relevant to that community to find more targeted users.

Propeller. Propeller offers two useful lists: top submitters, as well as the overall most active members page.

Mixx. The top karma gainers in a 24 period can be found in the Mixx lounge. Mixx also showcases specialty awards for loyal (and unique) Mixxers.

Social networking sites

Twitter. A wide variety of applications display data about Twitter power users using different methodologies:

Twitterholic. This list shows the top Twitter users by follower count (up to 1000). Twitterholic also has a quick search where you can quickly calculate your own Twitter rank.

Twellow. Dubbed as “The Twitter Yellow Pages” this extremely detailed Twitter directory features over 40 different categories, each with detailed sub-categories. Once inside a category or sub-category users are added based on their public profiles and can be claimed and adjusted by claiming your account.

WeFollow. This user-powered Twitter directory shows members with the top followers broken down by different categories. Users can easily find the most popular Twitter members by specialty. WeFollow is solely driven by users and you must grant WeFollow access to your account in order to be added to the directory.

Retweetist. While finding popular users in your niche, Retweetist allows you to go one step further and find out which members have their messages spread about the most. This displays the number of unique retweets over the past 24 hours. A quick search on your name will also display your retweet percentage and give you your retweet ratio per 1000 followers to help compare popularity.

Facebook.

Within Facebook, the main communities do not revolve around the top users, but instead within the different communities:

Groups. The majority of Facebook groups are non-branded and mainly cause-related. If you can interact and engage groups in a positive and helpful way, you can successfully reach an extremely targeted number of passionate individuals. This lists groups with members in descending order.

Pages. While most pages are corporate, many top Facebook pages can be based around a non-branded object. An example of this is the Pizza Fan Page that has over 3 million fans. If there are pages with established communities that relate to your company joining the conversation could be extremely beneficial. This lists fan pages with followers in descending order.

It’s easy to find the top users and groups on social sites, but always remember that if you cannot engage in a helpful and constructive manner, it is better to not engage at all!

When using social news sites for search marketing, you are inevitably going to run into annoying people. Some, in fact, may be actively trying to undermine your credibility, to further their own agenda. You need to watch out for these troglodytes, and respond appropriately to maintain your own credibility. Here are the 10 worst kinds of comment saboteurs to watch out for.

Know-it-alls

No matter how great your submission is, these characters think they can find a way to make it better. It they are an “expert” on the topic, you will know. While adding to the community is a definite positive, the “know-it-alls” make sure that it isn’t about the content … it’s about themselves.

You will find these people restating your content is a slightly different manner, explaining back stories and history behind everything or just adding their own content in through the comments. Every topic has an expert and, unfortunately, most experts come off as annoying. So look for your “know-it-alls” on the most popular stories everywhere.

Annoyance Level: Medium High

The first fanatic

These people love one thing and one thing only. Being first. They usually do this for one reason—visibility. Instead of working hard and finding good content, they just leech on to others and hang onto the coattails as long as possible.

With comment voting enabled, these “first fanatics” now try to shapeshift their way into good graces. Rather than a “FIRST!” they now leave comments like “Really thought provoking stuff” or “Now that”s news!” If you see a comment at the top that doesn’t add value—bingo, you just found Waldo, the nothing-to-contribute attention grabbers.

Annoyance Level: Medium Low

The content hater

Rule 1 of social news is that not everyone will like your content. Rule 2 of social news is that you are going to hear about it. “The haters” not only dislike your submission—they want the world to know about it. Unlike the troll (see below), the haters just hate your content, not you.

Maybe the content wasn’t substantial enough. Maybe they didn’t agree with your take—instead of quietly downvoting your submission, they are going to try to start a revolution. Odds are that these people only contribute to the community with negative comments and furies of hate. Your best bet is to just downvote these babies and not engage their whining.

Annoyance Level: Medium High

The elitist

Cousins of both the “the haters” and the “know it alls,” the elitists only enjoy the finest products and make sure that everyone knows it, too. The main difference with “the Elitists” is that instead of being malicious towards others, they are simply in love with themselves and love flaunting it.

You might find them commenting on why Macs are better than PCs, talking about why microbrews are the only things beers worth drinking or why it”s unacceptable to buy an American car. The best thing to do when running into elitists in the wild is to simply leave them alone and let them embarrass themselves.

Annoyance Level: Medium

The jealous one

You found great content and you submitted it; it became popular. Lookout, because success brings jealousy. These people are not the “do-ers” of the community; instead of working hard, they just revel in causing a scene.

You” find these commenters complaining about power users, whining about mainstream sites and moaning about everyone else except the slackers in their mirrors. The only thing these users will ever be passionate about is starting a revolution and spearing a witch-hunt. Avoid at all costs, but don”t stop being successful just because others aren’t.

Annoyance Level: High

The fanatical fact-checker

No need to call Snopes.com—the “fanatical fact checker” (aka FFC) is right around the corner to say their bit. Instead of clarifying a situation in a way to help the community, they spout off all the info that they can muster up to cut you and your submission down.

Maybe your submission touched on Wolfenstein 3D as being one of the first successful first-person shooters—the FFC will be sure to let everyone know that “Maze Wars” came out in 1980 and had a small cult following. Or maybe you mentioned that the majority of experts chose the Patriots to win the 2008 NFL season—the FFC will hunt down any pre-season mentions of the Pats losing and share with world, as loudly as possible. The thing with the fanatical fact checker is that they mean well, they just don”t know how to say it.

Annoyance Level: Low

The hijacker

These users seek momentum and then do their damndest to steal as much as they can. Their goals are to find upcoming (but relevant) content and leverage that to their own benefit. They will link from your story to theirs to suck the livelihood from your hard work. The key to spotting these hacks is that instead of actually linking to neutral relevant content, they link straight to their social submissions or their personal blogs.

Whether disguised as “additional info” or “for more details” these commenters really want one more thing—additional votes. Report these users if possible, as they try to make themselves appear as godsends, but are really just polite SPAMers.

Annoyance Level: Medium High

The troll

The bizzaro version of “the hater,” these users seriously dislike you and want you to know it—publicly. Maybe you created better content than they did, or you downvoted one of their articles and they found out. The fact of the matter is that they are pissed. And they are going to follow you around to pester you.

The less attention you pay to trolls, the better. The anonymity of the Internet makes it easy to be a troll. It’s easy to counteract trolls—just try not to piss too many people off and be a nice person—squashing trolls before they start is always the best tactic.

Annoyance Level: High

The agenda spreader

These users target momentum just like hijackers do, but are worse members to the community. Agenda spreaders not only target relevant content, but mainly target competitive content.

Instead of persuading community members with your own content, these people spread competitive information on others others” posts. If you see a positive Republican agenda comment on an Obama submission or PS3 praise on a Wii post you probably caught an agenda spreader.

Annoyance Level: Very High

The shameless spammer

Why even choose a tactic when you can just drop your link into a comment? These people don’t try to hide at all. They drop links to their blogs everywhere that they think they can get traffic. Thanks for the link to your stop smoking site on my NFL submission Mr. Spammer; now I am reporting you.

Annoyance Level: Very High

Images are one of the most popular forms of social media news content for a variety of reasons. This form of media is easily consumed, transfers information quickly, usually requires less reading and can project a great deal of information (many times more so than text). People are busy and not willing to give away their time unless they know something is worth it. Images require a very low time investment, making them a medium that will never die.

Almost any business can make this social media medium work in its favor, and the results from a successful social media campaign that utilizes images can be fairly impressive.

Use image sets

For targeted content, try using groups of images rather than a solo image. A group of images should help to provide visitors with more comprehensive content, which many times can garner more social votes (example).

Tastefully mark original images

If your content is original, feel free to place your URL in the bottom right of the image. Images are the easiest form of content to steal, so marking these images can help to get your brand some visibility for your content. Warning: Excessive watermarking and labeling will be detrimental to your campaign’s success! Use in moderation.

Use large images

The largest images possible should be used for social media news. Small and low-res images can get a great deal of negative comments and cost you votes. Don’t know what size image to use? Always default to the largest possible (800px wide max).

Use same size images

If you have multiple images, or an image set, use the same size for each image. This gives your article a more professional feel and gives the submissions a much more uniform look. Never use a jumble of different image sizes; your story will look much more amateur.

Use image categories

Always submit images to the proper category/type. Images on Digg should be submitted as an image. Reddit should be placed into the PICS category.

Use a host for images

Amazon’s S3 and Flickr Pro are some options that will help keep your server from kicking the bucket.  Large images or image sets can really be a burden for a server that is getting hit with the Digg-effect.

Funny images are easily the most popular images found on social media news sites and traditionally are the best topics for garnering votes. Social media users don’t appreciate funny content being mixed with news/informational content, so these images should always be submitted into the humor/funny category, regardless of the content of the picture. (Example: a funny picture of a world leader should be placed into ‘Humor’ rather than ‘World News.’)

If you’re creating the image from scratch, a few things should be taken into consideration.  “Internet speak” should be used for captions, and if drawing or Photoshopping an image, the quality of drawings should either be tremendously high (example), or extremely low (example) – anything in between will seem awkward.

Nine examples of ‘Funny Images’ to use in social media:

1. Perfectly timed photo -  Photos that look like something is happening that really isn’t – (example)
2. Cartoon – Humorous cartoons, web cartoons often lack detailed drawings – (example)
3. Sequencing – Taking a series of pictures and inserting a twist somewhere – (example)
4. Captioned Photos – Adding ‘internet dialog’ to a cute/funny photo – (example)
5. Screenshots – Something you see on your computer that makes you laugh will probably do the same for others – (example)
6. Fake Screenshots – Made up web pages/programs – (example)
7. Photoshop – Creating something absurd or funny – (example)
8. Real Life Happenings – Anything that makes you LOL will probably do the same on the web – (example)
9. Mashups – A take-off on a current internet meme – (example)

Social Media users love good photography. The key is that the photography has to be excellent; low-quality photography doesn’t usually fare well. By creating image sets photography can generally do much better.

Three types  of ‘Photography Images’ for use in social media:

1. Nature – Capturing nature’s beauty on film – (example)
2. HDR – High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography; can make breathtaking pictures – (example)
3. Space – Images that are out of this world, literally – (example)

Design has been a staple in social media news sites, and there are sites dedicated solely to this subject.  Design related images should be extremely high resolution, and the content should be truly extraordinary. Image sets also work well in the design space.

Four examples of ‘Design Images’ typically used in social media:

1. Digital Art – Something that has been digitized or original digital creations – (example)
2. Graffiti – Tasteful, extremely creative or funny tagging – (example)
3. Web Design – Extremely good (or bad) websites – (example)
4. Fonts – Using fonts to illustrate a current event or happening – (example)

These images should get social votes because they provide value. The key for these images is to be easy to consume and to be comprehensive. The images should not only be helpful, but should also be designed well. Great design can make an ordinary informative image turn into an essential resource.

A guide to ActionScript should be able to be printed without cropping, and a keyboard guide to Photoshop should fit on your keyboard.

Six formats of ‘Informative Images’ that work in social media:

1. Charts/Graphs – Anything that visually shows interesting statistics – (example)
2. Flow Charts – Helpful (or funny) charts that explain the process of something visually – (example)
3. How-To’s – A sequence of events showing how something works – (example)
4. Maps – A geographic look at a something specific – (example)
5. Screen Shots – A visual screen-by-screen guide on how to accomplish something – (example)
6. Guides – A helpful list that incorporates all aspects of a specific task – (example)

This is the hardest category to create/find images for. The goal of any image in this genre is to astound, and to do this, these images need to be (or look) 100% true. A photoshopped image in this category should have a goal of being passed off as something that looks perfectly believable. Aggregating these forms of images is exponentially easier than creating new original content.

Three types of ‘Unbelievable Images’ that score in social media:

1. Action Shots – Photography that captures the essence of an event – (example)
2. Photoshopped Images – Unbelievable images altered so well that they could pass as being real – (example)
3. Caught on Film – Crazy acts found on the web showing actions caught in real life – (example)

These types of images are either news, or backup/confirm news. These images are not easy to create, but can bring a great deal of buzz and links if done well. A good format for using these images to drive traffic would be to create collections of content (i.e., images from Plane in Hudson).

Four uses for ‘News Images’ in social media:

1. Exclusives – Images that are exclusive to your site – (example)
2. Breaking News – Images that confirm and reveal a current event – (example)
3. Follow-Up to a Major News Story – Pictures that support or confirm current news – (example)
4. Historical – Photos from an earlier time period that are unique and interesting – (example)

Overall, images are one of the most powerful types of content for social media news sites. Their ability to be quickly consumed and to tell a story better than words makes them ideal for social consumption.